Mountain of sandbags used to save statue of Ukraine national poet in Kharkiv

A monument of Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainian poet and a national symbol, is covered with bags to protect it from Russian shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo: AP

In Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv - under daily Russian bombardment that has damaged or destroyed 1,000 buildings - work has begun to erect sand barricades to protect its statues.

The most symbolic of them all sits enthroned in the heart of the town centre in a vast park filled with century-old trees: Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's national poet, who was the country's foremost 19th-century bard and one of the first to write in Ukrainian.